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juushikaAnother Tumblr crosspost!
Missy and I are co-playing Ocarina of Time
Zelda is his childhood & he's playing this now as a Breath of the Wild stopgap, and he's playing on DS; I've never played a Zelda game, have no nostalgia & only cultural knowledge, and am playing N64 via emulator
yoink I'll be copypasting & editing some of our more relevant chatter
we're at approximately the 50% mark? both at or after the fire temple.
the inconsequential, via liveblog:
i find spawning at home SO TIRESOME
how to make it immersive part of worldbuilding: spawn at different inns/stay at houses in different towns/etc
how to make it annoying: if you take break, you must walk across entire map again
......okay
eventual solution: ruthlessly exploiting save states, both to avoid walking anywhere and to avoid "Link plummeted off the edge of the earth, now redo 50% of the entire dungeon" syndrome
I hate the skulltula
so much
very not okay
Missy:
not fan of body horror?
or just spiders
me:
very spiders
vidya game spiders rarely actually scare me??
but these do
forest temple is a piece of shit
like, pretty, in a Minecraft way*; but has none of the logic or flow of the child Link dungeons
*I'm playing with a high rez texture pack which is actually subtle and lovely but does make interiors in particular feel hella Minecraft, all right angles with cozy earthy pixels
the combat is so bad tho QQ the lockon is just
it
it's not good
and i play Dark Souls!!!
i have a lot of lockon patience!
Missy:
i don't remember having problems with it
on n64
for me the hardest part is the shitty thumb stick on 2ds
me:
is v like Dark Souls
lockon is also camera reset
so sometimes you get "suddenly, looking the other way" which is never good
but mostly the window for lockon is just so narrow
is like if not looking directly at, cannot lock
[also forget ever locking on to anything vertical until after it has hit you]
and if i were look directly at! would not need to lock!!
but once locked on battles are really easy
so the bosses are never that hard
it's just when >1 badguy on field
and while you're strafing away from an attack to the butt
and camera is going all in circles every time you try and lock on to anyone
it's trash mobs that fuck me up
every time
* * *
Substantial thoughts, re: narrative & structure, still mostly via liveblog but also some things which are paragraph-adjacent!
me:
ps a new rule
don't GIVE me boomerang and then immediately REMOVE my boomerang you fuckers
Missy:
hookshot
so short
why not longshot?
me:
yanno this actually made me have Deep Critical Thoughts
the reason is that the carrot/stick is convenience; there needs to be a reward for game progression, so nice things function as rewards, but that means game progress must be achieved by annoying-ass tools—and you can have the cool thing!! briefly!!! but it gone now lol: baseline gameplay must meet a minimum standard of annoying/bothersome, or it doesn't justify a reward.
Missy:
so
is funny you mention
because
the "standard" order [of adult dungeons]
is forest fire water shadow sand
but. because of tools being generally given to accomplish dungeon. there are nonstandard orders people prefer
which is bad from the narrative pov
me:
are all the games like this
no character development except the fanfic i could write if i cared
zelda is 200% more interesting but this isn't her story
& "game/dungeon flow is for losers"
[SO MUCH. BACKTRACKING. in single dungeons! it's bad design!!]
that said there's a surprising amount of super understated narrative
but i remind self
it's old
& old narratives are generally understated/subtextual/thin
that said
that intense musical moment [Bolero of Fire] i had with someone dressed as/living as/that i thought was a dude
surprisingly gayyyyyyyy
me:
the way these Big Revelations just
occur
"you're not a Kokiri!"
"you're literally the chosen one; also, an orphan"
"thought you'd want to know! bye!"
and there's a lot of subtextual/time-to-have-a-personal-crisis narrative in
we put you in a bottle for 7 years
hope you didn't want to experience adolescence
(it's very Kingdom Hearts except in KH he gets to have some of that crisis)
me:
i feel like the narrative works if
...i was gonna say, actually, "if you like hero's journey" but the thing is there IS NONE
HE NEVER REFUSES THE QUEST
put me in a bottle for 7 years
give me magic music maker
send me all around the world
that's fine
all the refusal is "I guess you could write fic about his feelings," it's insufficient & subtextual
I hate heroes' journeys but this a particularly flat one even for that
but at the same time
lot of gaming hallmarks/genre markers being literally written here
Missy:
nevermind the fact that
1. deku + navi -> zelda is WHY they assemble 3 stones -> why ganondork gets power -> why they gotta put him in a 7 year time travel
basically if he'd been like ".. navi you annoying *squish*"
then.. game done
no problem.
no ganon power because shit hidden
me:
the real narrative is zelda
trying to politick as a baby
Missy:
yes
Me:
kicking herself for fucking up
7 long years of "what have i done" and gaining strength and knowledge and self-sufficiency
then politicking better
Missy:
> Yes > Yes
me:
i like that story more
i want either link crying & heroic journey refusal
OR
a fantasy of manners about zelda
being the best
not "link swing sword, rub keys on locks"
me:
so are all Zelda games just
parallel universes
same cast same save the world same basic mythology
different plots/means
no reference to the saving that occurred in other games????
wiki says the answer is, yes, sort of: some branching paths -> alternate timelines, some parallel settings/timelines; okay
i have a lot of thinks re: worldbuilding in that fashion, i can understand getting surprisingly invested in lore & subtextual character development, but the "when in doubt, recycle" + focus on the much less interesting male character + hero journey stock fantasy setting stuff doesn't tempt me to play a lot of them
[like I seriously love reiteration as a narrative device, it's happened a lot in media I've encountered lately (I just watched Re:Zero; I have Feelings) and is such a fertile form of character development, but there's just ... insufficient character here, on a time investment to reward basis]
* * *
Finale
travel to first city > get out of habit of playing Zelda in sleep-deprived travel and recovery days > stall out > pick game back up same day we started playing Dark Souls III again and wow the games do not mesh > oh well > travel to other city again, can't play Dark Souls while here > tl;dr finally beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
My liveblog from ~50% to the end: game events, Navi as mechanic, time travel???, so much metadata, Gerudo are the very best, cyclical narrative are fascinating and I wish I wanted to play the other games, etc.; it is very long!
me:
hello dark Link is in this one
1) this is the 1.5 things i was not really spoiled for (in context of Ocarina) 2) oh my god i have so much fanart of this scene
what a well-done sequence! really subtle and eerie effects/use of reflection and clever combat and
like not skillful combat at all
"don't lock on, try and sort of flail until you get around him then stab his butt wildly"
but pretty and the fade-out is really effective!
so much really good subtextual-to-the-point-of-not-existing narrative; fights with shadow selves are best trope?? i looked at that art again and! it v good! i remember finding this dynamic compelling even before familiar with canon in any way!
but it's not explored, just, "you could explore this yourself, if you want"
me:
where is Link keep iron boots when not wear
that they don't effect his weight
just curious
Missy:
don't ask
they magic
also
it really amuses me that your biggest connection to OoT is
"i have sexy pics of Link and dark Link"
me:
what is the logic of traveling BACK to kid Link??? (there is no logic, i know, i know)
"you picked up the sword and were too young for it so we incubated you until ready" implies that
Kingdom Hearts-esque
he grew up in the jar, time passed but he wasn't there for it
but then no! and he can go back! and
i get it would be awful to put collectables/shortcuts and then be like ARBITRARY UNPREDICTABLE CUT-OFF POINT
being able to pop back is polite; and having offered that, tying it into plot is clever
but
........how???? it work?
[future Juu: Spirit Temple is best dungeon b/c it makes the time travel mechanic part of the core gameplay, aka the dungeons; but the time travel still fails to make sense, here or there or in the ending. maybe I read too much into chrysalis imagery b/c of my KH background? but the original wording, "we put you in sacred realm until you growed up," just conflicts hugely with everything else time travel does in this game]
Missy:
in the room with the rolly boulders
HEY
HEY
HEY
HEY
HEY
HEY
GODDAMIT NAVI
I GET WE NEED TO AVOID THE BOULDERS YOU DON'T HAVE TO YELL ABOUT THEM NONSTOP
hey navi. you don't like getting squished. i don't like getting squished. HOW ABOUT YOU STOP SAYING HEY SO I DON'T JUST SQUISH YOU.
me:
i am so 50/50 on why everyone found Navi so annoying
i have this strong "it not her fault" feel
"it the limit of her programing"
Missy:
normally she fine
but sometimes
HEY HEY HEY HEY
me:
some of [the boy's] retro game adventures in the time before waypoints are... interesting
like it's super immersive which is great
more active exploration, less "mindlessly follow waypoint"
but they forget that in the samey-textured-fucking-identical-rooms you just ... can't pathfind naturally
i come away with this really strong sense of "oh that's why we handhold" when actually! we could handhold less now that we can have unrecycled textures/assets and rooms that aren't just boxes!
but you still spend the whole time (in retro games) wishing for
a waypoint or a fucking HUD or anything in the world that tells you how go where
[examples of retro games that fit this matrix: the original Thief series, the original Deus Ex]
and i feel like Navi is that
"in such a sprawling and potentially non-linear game, player needs an aid"
Missy:
esp when
HEY WHERE DO I GO?
HEY HEY LISTEN
sorta useful
me:
yeah she's good for "how to begin next dungeon" stuff
but for stuff like "what do these magic seeds do" "chickens????" she useless
and then she breaks out the advice for "DID YOU KNOW BOULDER MAKE THE SQUISH"
thanks navi, i had guessed
Missy:
hehe
yahh
me:
there's actually—and, let us still preserve my overall ehhhhhhhhh opinion of Undertale, but—there's a great sort of hat-tip to that trope
when helper NPC interrupts you while doing a puzzle so that you are forced to "fail" it
(need to push three buttons; NPC: "I'll help you with timing!!"; reminder re: timing forces you to fail timing lol)
god aren't vidya games cool
they're like 50% experience/feelings/narrative and 50% mechanics/game design
it's so interesting!!! i have feelings!!!!
me:
Bongo Bongo actually fav boss so far WITH savestates
without, probably hell
but with, save stating becomes another mechanic, another move to time, like saving after stunning second hand so i can make sure eye of truth + counter eye + dmg, and then reset to save state if i miss one of those steps which happens a lot
pacing great with savestates, very tense
without, probably just ragey
Missy:
yes
and yes
[future Juu: this became a consistent theme. I started using save states to avoid the constant walking back each time I returned to the game, but they universally made combat feel more strategic and dependent on my actions, and less flaily and dependent on ehhh controls]
me:
hello yes the Gerudo are extremely interesting
is very Amazons
Missy:
yes
except Ganondork
me:
like in any single-sex society, even those created by feminists (Joanna Russ, Nicola Griffith) i want more interrogation of sex=gender, how gender binary works when part of the binary is super unrepresented, characters forgoing binary entirely, etc.
esp. interesting here b/c they 1) do have very rare males 2) have contact with non-Gerudo men, so they're exposed to a gender binary, but how does that impact their culture
"occasionally a man and then he becomes king of everything" is super icky for obvious reasons
but i wonder what the on-the-ground view of that is, like, they have their own leadership roles, 100 years is a long time to be periodically self-sustaining, does the average citizen even care
is it a figurehead monarchy "they just wear the pretty crown and look important; meanwhile, we rule ourselves" system
fucked up every cycle that Ganandorf shows up to be ~evil~
me:
obviously they do enough breeding outside their race to sustain it, but their culture is actually pretty self-contained/even xenophobic, so
how does culture sharing work, how does race work???? Gerudo have distinct skin tone, but are breeding with whiter people presumably a lot, what does mixed race look like??? or b/c ~magic~ is that not a thing, are the daughters all just Gerudo
wiki says we unno if they have contact with bio fathers, is there any cultural sharing???
what does Gerudo family unit look like; j/k it's a "a lesbian and her extended lesbian family"
Missy:
Keep in mind
Historically speaking
*every* Gerudo male in known history is Ganondork
Following every game
And every timeline
So the king of everything may not be so much icky political as Gerudo + triforce of power = Ganon king of Gerudo/evil = harbinger of end of world and Hyrule reset
me:
so, Dark Souls-like, we're sort of stuck in a timeline/event loop, looking at same sort of events in different times/iterations
(maybe it's a reverse Jesus, like, they had this prophecy indefinitely but it didn't effect daily life, but when it's realized via Ganon we begin a sort of cycle of the game series)
Missy:
Most interesting bits there are the Twilight Princess stuff
Where the n64 Link is a shade waiting for end of world to pass on his knowledge before disappearing
Because yeah—Ganon loop seems like public Gerudo knowledge
But Link loop is less talked about. The hero of time is just the legend
me:
i'm sort of mad that aesthetic/the plot is just hero's journey/here have the same narrative 2023842 times makes me not want to play others
while iterated narrative is such a great trope and does make me want to care
Missy:
Zelda future is open world
The narrative is apparently partially taking back seat
So the future lore from Twilight Princess would be tasty for you (esp. since Hyrule is bigger and more history has been written)
But then the open world of BotW is a different allure. You write your own story etc
me:
but open world just so ...............tired
the dumb shit one can do in BotW is interesting, i just
i like, you know, a narrative or sense of purpose
me:
i finish Ocarina i have questions
so Zelda sends him back to original time, everyone happy in future, life beautiful, sages together & everyone seems to know what's occurred or at least that evil gone now
child Link shows up at temple, Navi is like bye bitch, child Link goes to see child Zelda
does he tell her to not fuck up > Ganondorf doesn't come to power in new alternate timeline????
b/c either she's like, hey, i know you want to be an adult now, but time to be a child and live through the reign of terror until future you saves shit, OR
they're alternate timelining it and everything sages etc did won't really exist, so why so long an epilogue focused on them
either way the time travel still doesn't make sense since all the sword does is pop Link in chrysalis until old enough to use it??????/
Missy:
Ocarina -> timeline split
the adult saved timeline is the one that leads to Wind Waker, i think
tl;dr Link saves world and then goes poof oops
me:
"Regardless, Ocarina of Time has always been one of the centerpoint games in the chronology, with the events at the end of the game, where Zelda sends Link back to his youth, splitting the timeline." (source)
okay
okay that's a thing
Missy:
yeah
so Twilight Princess is the other branch
me:
Zelda: still fucking things up sorta
gj Zelda
she is the center of everything isn't she, i guess, like, thus the title
Missy:
yes she is
Ganon-Link-Zelda
triforce
me:
"When the official timeline was revealed in Hyrule Historia, the placement of Ocarina of Time in the series was revealed to be of even greater value, as the events of the game actually split the series's timeline into three branches." (ibid.)
Missy:
oh yeah
third branch
we fucked up branch
as in you lose to Ganondork
and then.. snes game?
me:
god i love iterated narratives it really is a pity i don't care about the worldbuilding (except lesbians obvs.) and also characters and also aesthetic and also hero's journey and also gameplay
"Link is sent back to his childhood, leaving this branch without a Hero, as told in the prologue to The Wind Waker. Ganondorf eventually overcomes the Sages' seal and attempts to take over Hyrule, but with no Hero to face the evil," GJ ZELDA JEEZE
like tbf, Link telling Zelda > child timeline is also Link's fault
and Link failing to defeat Ganon > grimdark timeline is also him
so he is central, triforce, etcetc
but Zelda is actually interesting
and Link is mostly fridge horror
so, shrug
that said, it some good fridge horror
i propose alternate timeline for another fanfic i never gon' write
child Link almost warns Zelda, goes, wait, what about timeline shit, nvm, decides to just wait it out
seven years of increasing darkness
watching bad shit pile up
actually seeing it from the ground instead of in summary, it worse than he thought, "i done fucked up"
Missy:
do a triforce swap
Ganon comes out with wisdom
Zelda has power
Link still courage
me:
Ganon wisdom = grimest dark
b/c he would be smart enough to succeed
wisdom is power really, it's more effective longterm than brute force
then Hyrule rip
Missy and I are co-playing Ocarina of Time
Zelda is his childhood & he's playing this now as a Breath of the Wild stopgap, and he's playing on DS; I've never played a Zelda game, have no nostalgia & only cultural knowledge, and am playing N64 via emulator
yoink I'll be copypasting & editing some of our more relevant chatter
we're at approximately the 50% mark? both at or after the fire temple.
the inconsequential, via liveblog:
i find spawning at home SO TIRESOME
how to make it immersive part of worldbuilding: spawn at different inns/stay at houses in different towns/etc
how to make it annoying: if you take break, you must walk across entire map again
......okay
eventual solution: ruthlessly exploiting save states, both to avoid walking anywhere and to avoid "Link plummeted off the edge of the earth, now redo 50% of the entire dungeon" syndrome
I hate the skulltula
so much
very not okay
Missy:
not fan of body horror?
or just spiders
me:
very spiders
vidya game spiders rarely actually scare me??
but these do
forest temple is a piece of shit
like, pretty, in a Minecraft way*; but has none of the logic or flow of the child Link dungeons
*I'm playing with a high rez texture pack which is actually subtle and lovely but does make interiors in particular feel hella Minecraft, all right angles with cozy earthy pixels
the combat is so bad tho QQ the lockon is just
it
it's not good
and i play Dark Souls!!!
i have a lot of lockon patience!
Missy:
i don't remember having problems with it
on n64
for me the hardest part is the shitty thumb stick on 2ds
me:
is v like Dark Souls
lockon is also camera reset
so sometimes you get "suddenly, looking the other way" which is never good
but mostly the window for lockon is just so narrow
is like if not looking directly at, cannot lock
[also forget ever locking on to anything vertical until after it has hit you]
and if i were look directly at! would not need to lock!!
but once locked on battles are really easy
so the bosses are never that hard
it's just when >1 badguy on field
and while you're strafing away from an attack to the butt
and camera is going all in circles every time you try and lock on to anyone
it's trash mobs that fuck me up
every time
* * *
Substantial thoughts, re: narrative & structure, still mostly via liveblog but also some things which are paragraph-adjacent!
me:
ps a new rule
don't GIVE me boomerang and then immediately REMOVE my boomerang you fuckers
Missy:
hookshot
so short
why not longshot?
me:
yanno this actually made me have Deep Critical Thoughts
the reason is that the carrot/stick is convenience; there needs to be a reward for game progression, so nice things function as rewards, but that means game progress must be achieved by annoying-ass tools—and you can have the cool thing!! briefly!!! but it gone now lol: baseline gameplay must meet a minimum standard of annoying/bothersome, or it doesn't justify a reward.
Missy:
so
is funny you mention
because
the "standard" order [of adult dungeons]
is forest fire water shadow sand
but. because of tools being generally given to accomplish dungeon. there are nonstandard orders people prefer
which is bad from the narrative pov
me:
are all the games like this
no character development except the fanfic i could write if i cared
zelda is 200% more interesting but this isn't her story
& "game/dungeon flow is for losers"
[SO MUCH. BACKTRACKING. in single dungeons! it's bad design!!]
that said there's a surprising amount of super understated narrative
but i remind self
it's old
& old narratives are generally understated/subtextual/thin
that said
that intense musical moment [Bolero of Fire] i had with someone dressed as/living as/that i thought was a dude
surprisingly gayyyyyyyy
me:
the way these Big Revelations just
occur
"you're not a Kokiri!"
"you're literally the chosen one; also, an orphan"
"thought you'd want to know! bye!"
and there's a lot of subtextual/time-to-have-a-personal-crisis narrative in
we put you in a bottle for 7 years
hope you didn't want to experience adolescence
(it's very Kingdom Hearts except in KH he gets to have some of that crisis)
me:
i feel like the narrative works if
...i was gonna say, actually, "if you like hero's journey" but the thing is there IS NONE
HE NEVER REFUSES THE QUEST
put me in a bottle for 7 years
give me magic music maker
send me all around the world
that's fine
all the refusal is "I guess you could write fic about his feelings," it's insufficient & subtextual
I hate heroes' journeys but this a particularly flat one even for that
but at the same time
lot of gaming hallmarks/genre markers being literally written here
Missy:
nevermind the fact that
1. deku + navi -> zelda is WHY they assemble 3 stones -> why ganondork gets power -> why they gotta put him in a 7 year time travel
basically if he'd been like ".. navi you annoying *squish*"
then.. game done
no problem.
no ganon power because shit hidden
me:
the real narrative is zelda
trying to politick as a baby
Missy:
yes
Me:
kicking herself for fucking up
7 long years of "what have i done" and gaining strength and knowledge and self-sufficiency
then politicking better
Missy:
> Yes > Yes
me:
i like that story more
i want either link crying & heroic journey refusal
OR
a fantasy of manners about zelda
being the best
not "link swing sword, rub keys on locks"
me:
so are all Zelda games just
parallel universes
same cast same save the world same basic mythology
different plots/means
no reference to the saving that occurred in other games????
wiki says the answer is, yes, sort of: some branching paths -> alternate timelines, some parallel settings/timelines; okay
i have a lot of thinks re: worldbuilding in that fashion, i can understand getting surprisingly invested in lore & subtextual character development, but the "when in doubt, recycle" + focus on the much less interesting male character + hero journey stock fantasy setting stuff doesn't tempt me to play a lot of them
[like I seriously love reiteration as a narrative device, it's happened a lot in media I've encountered lately (I just watched Re:Zero; I have Feelings) and is such a fertile form of character development, but there's just ... insufficient character here, on a time investment to reward basis]
* * *
Finale
travel to first city > get out of habit of playing Zelda in sleep-deprived travel and recovery days > stall out > pick game back up same day we started playing Dark Souls III again and wow the games do not mesh > oh well > travel to other city again, can't play Dark Souls while here > tl;dr finally beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
My liveblog from ~50% to the end: game events, Navi as mechanic, time travel???, so much metadata, Gerudo are the very best, cyclical narrative are fascinating and I wish I wanted to play the other games, etc.; it is very long!
me:
hello dark Link is in this one
1) this is the 1.5 things i was not really spoiled for (in context of Ocarina) 2) oh my god i have so much fanart of this scene
what a well-done sequence! really subtle and eerie effects/use of reflection and clever combat and
like not skillful combat at all
"don't lock on, try and sort of flail until you get around him then stab his butt wildly"
but pretty and the fade-out is really effective!
so much really good subtextual-to-the-point-of-not-existing narrative; fights with shadow selves are best trope?? i looked at that art again and! it v good! i remember finding this dynamic compelling even before familiar with canon in any way!
but it's not explored, just, "you could explore this yourself, if you want"
me:
where is Link keep iron boots when not wear
that they don't effect his weight
just curious
Missy:
don't ask
they magic
also
it really amuses me that your biggest connection to OoT is
"i have sexy pics of Link and dark Link"
me:
what is the logic of traveling BACK to kid Link??? (there is no logic, i know, i know)
"you picked up the sword and were too young for it so we incubated you until ready" implies that
Kingdom Hearts-esque
he grew up in the jar, time passed but he wasn't there for it
but then no! and he can go back! and
i get it would be awful to put collectables/shortcuts and then be like ARBITRARY UNPREDICTABLE CUT-OFF POINT
being able to pop back is polite; and having offered that, tying it into plot is clever
but
........how???? it work?
[future Juu: Spirit Temple is best dungeon b/c it makes the time travel mechanic part of the core gameplay, aka the dungeons; but the time travel still fails to make sense, here or there or in the ending. maybe I read too much into chrysalis imagery b/c of my KH background? but the original wording, "we put you in sacred realm until you growed up," just conflicts hugely with everything else time travel does in this game]
Missy:
in the room with the rolly boulders
HEY
HEY
HEY
HEY
HEY
HEY
GODDAMIT NAVI
I GET WE NEED TO AVOID THE BOULDERS YOU DON'T HAVE TO YELL ABOUT THEM NONSTOP
hey navi. you don't like getting squished. i don't like getting squished. HOW ABOUT YOU STOP SAYING HEY SO I DON'T JUST SQUISH YOU.
me:
i am so 50/50 on why everyone found Navi so annoying
i have this strong "it not her fault" feel
"it the limit of her programing"
Missy:
normally she fine
but sometimes
HEY HEY HEY HEY
me:
some of [the boy's] retro game adventures in the time before waypoints are... interesting
like it's super immersive which is great
more active exploration, less "mindlessly follow waypoint"
but they forget that in the samey-textured-fucking-identical-rooms you just ... can't pathfind naturally
i come away with this really strong sense of "oh that's why we handhold" when actually! we could handhold less now that we can have unrecycled textures/assets and rooms that aren't just boxes!
but you still spend the whole time (in retro games) wishing for
a waypoint or a fucking HUD or anything in the world that tells you how go where
[examples of retro games that fit this matrix: the original Thief series, the original Deus Ex]
and i feel like Navi is that
"in such a sprawling and potentially non-linear game, player needs an aid"
Missy:
esp when
HEY WHERE DO I GO?
HEY HEY LISTEN
sorta useful
me:
yeah she's good for "how to begin next dungeon" stuff
but for stuff like "what do these magic seeds do" "chickens????" she useless
and then she breaks out the advice for "DID YOU KNOW BOULDER MAKE THE SQUISH"
thanks navi, i had guessed
Missy:
hehe
yahh
me:
there's actually—and, let us still preserve my overall ehhhhhhhhh opinion of Undertale, but—there's a great sort of hat-tip to that trope
when helper NPC interrupts you while doing a puzzle so that you are forced to "fail" it
(need to push three buttons; NPC: "I'll help you with timing!!"; reminder re: timing forces you to fail timing lol)
god aren't vidya games cool
they're like 50% experience/feelings/narrative and 50% mechanics/game design
it's so interesting!!! i have feelings!!!!
me:
Bongo Bongo actually fav boss so far WITH savestates
without, probably hell
but with, save stating becomes another mechanic, another move to time, like saving after stunning second hand so i can make sure eye of truth + counter eye + dmg, and then reset to save state if i miss one of those steps which happens a lot
pacing great with savestates, very tense
without, probably just ragey
Missy:
yes
and yes
[future Juu: this became a consistent theme. I started using save states to avoid the constant walking back each time I returned to the game, but they universally made combat feel more strategic and dependent on my actions, and less flaily and dependent on ehhh controls]
me:
hello yes the Gerudo are extremely interesting
is very Amazons
Missy:
yes
except Ganondork
me:
like in any single-sex society, even those created by feminists (Joanna Russ, Nicola Griffith) i want more interrogation of sex=gender, how gender binary works when part of the binary is super unrepresented, characters forgoing binary entirely, etc.
esp. interesting here b/c they 1) do have very rare males 2) have contact with non-Gerudo men, so they're exposed to a gender binary, but how does that impact their culture
"occasionally a man and then he becomes king of everything" is super icky for obvious reasons
but i wonder what the on-the-ground view of that is, like, they have their own leadership roles, 100 years is a long time to be periodically self-sustaining, does the average citizen even care
is it a figurehead monarchy "they just wear the pretty crown and look important; meanwhile, we rule ourselves" system
fucked up every cycle that Ganandorf shows up to be ~evil~
me:
obviously they do enough breeding outside their race to sustain it, but their culture is actually pretty self-contained/even xenophobic, so
how does culture sharing work, how does race work???? Gerudo have distinct skin tone, but are breeding with whiter people presumably a lot, what does mixed race look like??? or b/c ~magic~ is that not a thing, are the daughters all just Gerudo
wiki says we unno if they have contact with bio fathers, is there any cultural sharing???
what does Gerudo family unit look like; j/k it's a "a lesbian and her extended lesbian family"
Missy:
Keep in mind
Historically speaking
*every* Gerudo male in known history is Ganondork
Following every game
And every timeline
So the king of everything may not be so much icky political as Gerudo + triforce of power = Ganon king of Gerudo/evil = harbinger of end of world and Hyrule reset
me:
so, Dark Souls-like, we're sort of stuck in a timeline/event loop, looking at same sort of events in different times/iterations
(maybe it's a reverse Jesus, like, they had this prophecy indefinitely but it didn't effect daily life, but when it's realized via Ganon we begin a sort of cycle of the game series)
Missy:
Most interesting bits there are the Twilight Princess stuff
Where the n64 Link is a shade waiting for end of world to pass on his knowledge before disappearing
Because yeah—Ganon loop seems like public Gerudo knowledge
But Link loop is less talked about. The hero of time is just the legend
me:
i'm sort of mad that aesthetic/the plot is just hero's journey/here have the same narrative 2023842 times makes me not want to play others
while iterated narrative is such a great trope and does make me want to care
Missy:
Zelda future is open world
The narrative is apparently partially taking back seat
So the future lore from Twilight Princess would be tasty for you (esp. since Hyrule is bigger and more history has been written)
But then the open world of BotW is a different allure. You write your own story etc
me:
but open world just so ...............tired
the dumb shit one can do in BotW is interesting, i just
i like, you know, a narrative or sense of purpose
me:
i finish Ocarina i have questions
so Zelda sends him back to original time, everyone happy in future, life beautiful, sages together & everyone seems to know what's occurred or at least that evil gone now
child Link shows up at temple, Navi is like bye bitch, child Link goes to see child Zelda
does he tell her to not fuck up > Ganondorf doesn't come to power in new alternate timeline????
b/c either she's like, hey, i know you want to be an adult now, but time to be a child and live through the reign of terror until future you saves shit, OR
they're alternate timelining it and everything sages etc did won't really exist, so why so long an epilogue focused on them
either way the time travel still doesn't make sense since all the sword does is pop Link in chrysalis until old enough to use it??????/
Missy:
Ocarina -> timeline split
the adult saved timeline is the one that leads to Wind Waker, i think
tl;dr Link saves world and then goes poof oops
me:
"Regardless, Ocarina of Time has always been one of the centerpoint games in the chronology, with the events at the end of the game, where Zelda sends Link back to his youth, splitting the timeline." (source)
okay
okay that's a thing
Missy:
yeah
so Twilight Princess is the other branch
me:
Zelda: still fucking things up sorta
gj Zelda
she is the center of everything isn't she, i guess, like, thus the title
Missy:
yes she is
Ganon-Link-Zelda
triforce
me:
"When the official timeline was revealed in Hyrule Historia, the placement of Ocarina of Time in the series was revealed to be of even greater value, as the events of the game actually split the series's timeline into three branches." (ibid.)
Missy:
oh yeah
third branch
we fucked up branch
as in you lose to Ganondork
and then.. snes game?
me:
god i love iterated narratives it really is a pity i don't care about the worldbuilding (except lesbians obvs.) and also characters and also aesthetic and also hero's journey and also gameplay
"Link is sent back to his childhood, leaving this branch without a Hero, as told in the prologue to The Wind Waker. Ganondorf eventually overcomes the Sages' seal and attempts to take over Hyrule, but with no Hero to face the evil," GJ ZELDA JEEZE
like tbf, Link telling Zelda > child timeline is also Link's fault
and Link failing to defeat Ganon > grimdark timeline is also him
so he is central, triforce, etcetc
but Zelda is actually interesting
and Link is mostly fridge horror
so, shrug
that said, it some good fridge horror
i propose alternate timeline for another fanfic i never gon' write
child Link almost warns Zelda, goes, wait, what about timeline shit, nvm, decides to just wait it out
seven years of increasing darkness
watching bad shit pile up
actually seeing it from the ground instead of in summary, it worse than he thought, "i done fucked up"
Missy:
do a triforce swap
Ganon comes out with wisdom
Zelda has power
Link still courage
me:
Ganon wisdom = grimest dark
b/c he would be smart enough to succeed
wisdom is power really, it's more effective longterm than brute force
then Hyrule rip
